Beginner's Guide
So, you want to become the most fearsome force in Atlantis? Well, everybody has to begin somewhere, and you've come to the right place. The following is a brief summary of how to get started, and where to go from there for new players to Dragons of Atlantis!The Blue text is links to other relevant pages in this wiki! Although the quests given to new players in Dragons of Atlantis will teach you to play the game, they go about it in a very inefficient way. If you're looking for more effective information, find an alliance that has veteren members and READ! 'Common Acronyms and Initialisms' First, some basic acronyms and initialisms that you may see in World Chat to help you get started in DoA: *AT - Armored Transport *BD - Battle Dragon *FM - Fire Mirror *FT - Fangtooth *FD - Fire Dragon *GD - Great Dragon *GO - Granite Ogre *LBM - Longbowmen *LJ - Lava Jaw *OP - Outpost *SD - Stone Dragon *SSD - Swift Strike Dragon *WC - World Chat *WD - Water Dragon *WiD - Wind Drago 'The Very Basics' Here is a list of basic topics to get someone started. Click the BLUE links for more information. *'Resources' *'Taxes and Population' *'Rubies' 'Fortuna's Games' Every day that you log in onto Dragons of Atlantis, you are awared a ticket to play Fortuna's Chance, a lottery game where you will win one of a variety of prizes. You can refresh the page to change what prizes are displayed. It is a good idea to refresh until a Completion Grant appears on the page. If you have logged on five out of the last seven days, you are instead awared a Medallion which allows you to play Fortuna's Vault, a game of the same type, but with better prizes. 'Power' Power is a measurement of how much might your empire has. You gain power by building and upgrading buildings, starting Outposts, and training Troops. It is possible to have a high Power, but have virtually no military strength. This is sometimes called "Fake Power". 'Your First Twenty-Four Hours' The first thing you need to get a handle on in Dragons of Atlantis is resource management. You need your resources to build anything and everything, from a humble farm, to a new Outpost once you find your Dragon Eggs. Your first twenty-four hours in Atlantis should be dedicated to maximizing your resource production as fast as possible. I advise you to upgrade your Fortress to level 2 and then build 1 farm and 3 each of the other fields to level 9. More fields is not advised because this will hinder your ability to produce troops later. Your food being negative is NOT a bad thing, this means you have troops. There is absolutely no reason to try to stay in the positive because food is easy to get from Camps.In order to produce resources, you also have to have enough population to work the fields. You should build between 4-6 houses, but NO MORE than that. I suggest upgrading these as resources become available until they are all level 6. This will give you enough population to produce resources and some extra to train troops. Time Management Dragons of Atlantis is a real-time strategy, in which everything is measured in a number of seconds, minutes, and hours. Although managing your time to the second isn't crucial to enjoying yourself, if you're looking to build your power as fast as you can, managing your time efficiently so you have nerly zero downtime is a must. Perform tasks that take several hours overnight, and leave the smaller ones for when you have time to click back and forth, and actually watch the game. Building an Army Once you have your resource production underway, it's time to start building your army. Armies require a few things. First, they require Garrison, next, they require idle population, and finally, your army will consume food at an hourly rate, detracting from your production. The first thing you want to train are Longbowmen, who excel at taking out level 1-5 Wildernesses and Anthropus Camps with few to no losses. Once you are able to conquer these camps, you now have a quick and easy way to procure large amounts of food for training your troops. Longbowmen require a Garrison of Level 4, and Weapons Calibration researched to level 1. You'll want to get on this ASAP.. Base Construction At this point in time, once you are producing a respectable amount of resources, you may want to consider filling out the rest of the slots in your city! The general thoughts on this are to build 1 of each of your main buildings (Muster Point, Officer Quarters...), 4-6 houses, and the rest should be filled with Garrisons. The Storage Vault is optional, but it is useful through out the game. The theater is typically ill advised because it is only useful during the first week or so of game play. 'Wildernesses' Wildernesses can be conquered by your troops, and will yield increases to resource production. They are essential to keeping your resource production high, and can be read about in more detail on the Wilderness 'page. 'Great Dragon So, as you've no doubt noticed, there is a rather prominent building in the middle of your city! This is your'Dragon's Keep', where your great dragon will be born and raised. To "raise" your dragon, you must upgrade the keep. Your Great Dragon is the focus of the first week or two of your stay in Atlantis, namely, getting your Great Dragon Armor, and teaching him Aerial Combat. Getting there isn't hard, but it does take some patience! In order to get your Great Dragon armored up and ready for combat, you'll need a few things... *'Research Dragonry and Aerial Combat' *'Great Dragon Armor' Starting Your First Outpost So, you've attacked dozens of Anthropus Camps, researched for days, and finally, your Great Dragon is ready for battle! He wouldn't be of much use if all he did was stand around looking tough, so let's make him earn his keep! In order to start your first Outpost, you need now is your Water Dragon Egg, which is easy enough to find! But before you start your search, there are some things you need to know... Dragon Healing Your Great Dragon is tough, but not invulnerable. Every time you send your Great Dragon on an attack, he will take damage, even if there are no Anthropus in the wilderness to hurt him, although the damage will be significantly less than if he were overwhelmed and defeated. He must heal after every fight. In order to minimize healing time, you should send two waves of troops before your dragon, to catch any stragglers. The number of attacks your dragon can make depends on how much damage he takes, the level of your Keep, and your level of Aerial Combat. Click here to read more about Great Dragons. Starting Your Outpost Now you have your egg, visit this link to start your Outpost '''and find advice about how it should be built. I advise not building fields in any of your OPs because this lowers your idle population and doesn't provide much benefit. '''DO NOT PLACE YOUR OPS NEXT TO YOUR CITY! Always space your OPs out so they are more difficult to find! 'The Military' Arguably, the most important part of your Empire will be your Military, so it warrants some basic discussion here. If you want more details on how the combat system itself works, visit the page here. Idle Population Idle Population can sometimes present the biggest obstacle for training your troops. Your Idle Population = Current Population - laborers - troops currently in training. If your Idle Population is 0, you cannot train any new troops. However, it is important to note that Idle Population repleneshes itself. Every time a group of troops is finished training, the Idle Population returns to you. After you have the troops to begin attacking other players for gold, I suggest dropping and leaving the tax rate at 0% so you can use your full idle population for training. Troops For detailed information about troops, visit the Troops and for information of how they work together during battles, visit the Battle page. 'The Breakdown' This is a general guide as to how to get your city from 0 to 1 million power as quickly as possible. Keep in mind that you should be researching, building, and training at the same time! In order to get built up quickly, you must ALWAYS have things upgrading! JOIN A HELPFUL ALLIANCE IMMEDIATELY! If yours can not answer your questions and assist in some way with resources, leave them and join another... it will only go downhill from there. 'Buildings' #Get 1 Farm, 3 Quarries, 3 Mines, and 3 Lumbermills to level 5 ASAP #Build 4-6 Homes to level 5 ASAP #*You will not be able to do all this at one time due to lack of resources, continue as you can. #As resources become available, build 1 each of your main City buildings including storage vault. #*I recommend not building a theater, if you do not like the vault... it can be destroyed later. #*You should build your Science Center first so you can begin researching. #Next you will fill the remaining slots in your City with garrisons... should be 14 total. #Level 1 garrison to level 6 as resources become available, you will be able to train ATs soon. #Now, upgrade buildings as you need to in order to research and train specific troops. 'Researching' Different people play differently, my intent is get decent troops as quick as possible to begin farming. #Complete the necessary researches to produce LBM and ATs. #*This accomplishes 2 things because some are needed for other important things. #Get Merchantilism up to level 3 ASAP. #Get level 3 Medicine, Metallurgy, and Weapon Calibration, this improves troop performance. #Complete level 5 Dragonry and level 3 Aerial Combat so you can begin looking for your WD egg. #From now, you will complete researches as needed for troops. #*I focus on Weapon Calibration up as soon as possible because lvl 10 takes 15 days. 'Troops' Troops are another thing that people have varying opinions on, but the starter troops are generally the same. #Train 200 LBM with this you can hit level 1 and 2 wilds and level 1 camps. #Train 200 Porters you will need these to carry the loot home from the camps. #Train LBM until you have 1k total #You should be able to train ATs now, if so train them until you get 200. #Train 500 Minos, these stand in front of your LBM protecting them... if they die, replace as needed. #Continue training LBM until you have 15k and ATs until you have 5k. #*You can now hit lvl 5 camps to get GD armor without risk of losing all your troops on 1 attack. #You should be able to train SSDs, train these until you have 50k. #*These are beasts at farming for resources, getting armor, and getting eggs. #For here, you should be able to fend for yourself and continue with the help of your alliance. 'Outposts' After you get your GD armor, you should immediately begin looking for your WD egg. As you get that one, search for the next... and so on until you have all 4 inital OPs. If you are having problems getting eggs due to your GD's long healing times, research higher levels of Aerial Combat. It is not only possible, but easy to get all of your OPs in less than a week. BUT armor for your other dragons is more difficult at times, this is why I suggest getting eggs and not worrying about armor until afterwards. 'Sources of Resources for Beginners'Edit Starting out can be difficult because resources are limited. So here are some places to get enough resources to keep buildings, troops, and researches going at all times ***'''(Ex. lvl 5 lakes = 5k food)' *Forests **Give 1000 wood x level of forest *Hills **Give 1000 stone x level of hill *Mountains **Give 1000 ore x level of mountain '''Later in the game 10k wood is practically nothing, but during the first week or 2 of the game... it can keep your city and troops moving forward.' 'Camps 'Edit Lower level camps drop small speeds which can be helpful after you gather a few. I suggest saving them for longer distance attacks other than buildings, but this is just preference. *Level 2Level 1 **Food - 112,500 **Wood - 5,000 **Ore - 500 **Stone - 500 **Gold - 2,500 **Food - 225,000 **Wood - 10,000 **Ore - 1,000 **Stone - 1,000 **Gold - 5,000 *Level 3 **Food - 337,500 **Wood - 15,000 **Ore - 1,500 **Stone - 1,500 **Gold - 7,500 These are the only three you should worry about until you have at least 10k LBM, 1k Minos, and 1k ATs. Reasoning is that these give plenty of resources for beginners and you will not risk losing all your troops by sending them all to 1 level 5 camp.